FINISHED ! Holly Hobbie Tania Culottes

I feel like I'm taking all my styling cues from Holly Hobbie today. It's all about corduroy culottes!

  I really love culottes and knickerbockers and am always looking out for a pattern, so when Megan Nielson released her Tania Culottes as part of the Breakwater collection I couldn’t move fast enough to buy them.  Despite all the styling and pattern notes talking about lightweight materials, it is Autumn and I love corduroy so I immediately saw this pattern in corduroy.

I had just enough corduroy left over from my Laurel dress to make it up exactly as per the pattern in size S.  I’m really happy with the fit, it is perfect and I didn’t need to make any alterations.

Let’s talk first about the pattern.  The way the front folds come together with the hidden crotch is ingenious. Massive congratulations to Megan.   The pattern has only a few pieces and is super straightforward to make up.  Even hemming the legs on the curve was pretty good and I hand stitched the waistband in place.  I’ve seen lots of very stylish girls in circle skirts in the MMMay13 flickr group and I’d recommend to anyone who wears this type of skirt to rush out and buy this pattern! It definitely allows you to sit in a very unlady like manner!

Sadly I had a shocker with the invisible zip.  Both times I didn’t place it correctly so the teeth curve around a bit over the waistband. The first time I actually managed to break the invisible zip by removing the pully thing, so I had to unpick the zip and put a new one in.  I still put it in the wrong place??! I’ve made a big note in my pattern booklet now about that, so I think I’ve learned that lesson now.  I hope so anyway.

Despite really loving the pattern, and I enjoy wearing them ... I’m not exactly sure they suit me.  Originally I made them thinking they would look great with my Bensimon jumper that I bought in France, but the silhouette didn't look great on me; the proportions a bit wrong when I then tried them on together.  Could be the colour of the corduroy as well?  I then proceeded to try them on with lots of my tops and nothing was quite right. I like them with this vest as the silhouette works better, though it is corduroy on corduroy and a bit cutesy.

I still think a longer pair might be very stylish, to the calf in a dark navy light wool for work.  Mmm maybe I’ll add that to the list of things to make.